Friday, November 15, 2013

The game changer

The
long awaited news finally came this week. Indian Navy's Flag officer
commanding in chief, Western Naval Command, vice admiral Shekhar
Sinha, has announced that INS Vikramaditya, the refurbished 44750
tonne aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov,will join the Indian Navy's
combat fleet on 16th
November 2013, when it would be commissioned by India's defence
minister A K Antony at Severodvinsk in Russia.

No
defence deal signed by India so far, has had such a long and
tortuous journey. The Soviet Naval fleet inducted this ship Gorshkov
in 1987 but decommissioned it in 1996 after it found that it could no
longer affiord the high costs in the post-Cold War era. Russia then
offered the partly damaged ship to India as a free "gift"
in 1994. India was expected to arrange funding towards the costs for
refit and fighter planes on board. In January 2004, a deal was signed
for US$ 1.5 Billion consisting of $974 package for refitting and rest
amount for 16 Nos. of MiG-29K aircraft. The ship was supposed to be
delivered by August 2008.

Then
the Russians found out that the refitting costs have been grossly
undervalued and wanted the contract to be renegotiated. What followed
were series of negotiations, amid bitter wrangling, which brought
distinct chill in the bilateral ties and the relations between two
countries. Finally, a fresh deal was done in 2010. The refit costs
were now agreed to $2.33 billion and another $2 billion as cost for
45 MiG-29K aircraft was agreed. The ship was to be delivered by
December 2012.

The
ship yard completed the refitting job well in advance for the sea
trial of the ship starting September 2012. However there were more
hiccups to follow. In first week of October 2012, Indian media
reported that the sea trials were not satisfactory. There were
reports of ship's boilers malfunctioning and some other gear on board
like nitrogen generators, refrigerators and boilers found defective.
This was a huge embarrassment for the Russians, as the delay in
commissioning the ship had reached to the level of the Russian
president and he had intervened personally to get the much delayed
project back on rails.

After
the ship returned to the yard it was found that the reports of the
defects found, were much exaggerated. The malfunctioning of the
boilers that occurred during high-speed tests has been pinned down to
a new insulation material placed between the boiler steel casing and
the outer firebricks, instead of conventional asbestos lining. This
was done at India's request. Slight deformation was observed in this
replacement material. No replacement or removal of the boilers was
required. India agreed to replace the new insulation lining
materials with conventional asbestos materials.

However,
boiler insulation modification work at this stage, meant a further
delay in handing over the ship by about six months. The Flight trials
or landing of fighter aircraft on the ship’s deck, were suspended
due to the onset of near-Arctic conditions in the Russian north. The
trials resumed only in April 2013, when the weather improved. The
sea trials were completed in July 2013, when the ship achieved its
top speed of 32 knots. Later, by September end, coming as a big
relief to Indian Navy, even aviation trials were successfully
completed. A team of 20 officers of the Indian Navy were present for
observation as fighter jets, flown by the Russian pilots, landed and
took off from the deck and performed all other exercises, like
touch-and-go, and flight profiles. The extensive sea trials of INS
Vikramaditya were now totally completed in all respects.

The
aircraft carrier is expected to arrive in India by middle of December
or about a month after it is commissioned and is expected to be
based in Karwar Naval base on west coast of India. Once it arrives
in India and becomes fully operational with MiG-29K aircraft being
flown by Indian pilots from its deck, "INS Vikramaditya surely
will be a game-changer.

In the
geostrategic game, everything depends on how a country projects its
potential power. An aircraft carrier capable of moving 600 nautical
miles in a day and ready to unleash its fighters, helicopters,
missiles to take the battle to an enemy's shores, is perhaps the best
way to project the country's power. The US has as many as 11
Nimitz-class "super-carriers" deployed around the globe.
Each is over 94,000-tonne, powered by two nuclear reactors and
capable of carrying 80-90 fighters. Therefor INS Vikramaditya is very
much likely to be in the forefront of Indian military diplomacy as it
patrols the seas to guard the country's strategic interests.